Lisa Delpit: The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children

 (Quotes)

“I want the same thing for everyone else’s children as I want for mine”

This quote means that you as a teacher, want to educate your student the same way that you educate your own children. Even though this statement was made probably with the best intentions, as Delpit points out; “This is a very reasonable goal for people who children are already participants in the culture of power and who have already internalized its code” but how the parent of the children of color? Do they what their children to be teach the same way? Every parent have their own preference on how their child should be teach.  I know that it must be difficult to please every parent, but at least an intent should be made to understand that every student come from different social status with different aspiration.

“They want to ensure that school provides their children with discourse patterns, interactional styles, and spoken and written language codes that will allow them success in the larger society”

This quotes addressed the needs and wants that a parent of a child of color have. I agree with Delpit when she says that it is the lack of attention to this concert such a negative outcry in the black community. This quote got me thinking of the “No child left behind act.” And have raised a question in my head. If a teacher or an institution is not taking in consideration, their student background, language, race and ethnicity, how is this not leaving a child behind? We are focusing on keeping student in school and out of the streets, and this really good but in order for us to prevent students from dropping out of school. We should provide a minority-friendly schools.

“…….Because authority is earned, the teacher must consistently prove the characteristic that give her authority”

This quotes means that the teacher keeps his or her classroom under control, he or her will earn respect from their student. When children have respect from their teacher is more likely the student will be more productive in class. A good example of this is a teacher I had in high school, this teacher was one of the toughest teacher I ever had, but he was also the more respective teacher in school. He was what you call a nonsense kind of teacher but also very fair, everybody knew that they most do their work in his class. I remembered now that he used to say “I want for you guys to be a first class citizens, I want to get you ready for the real world, where their rules to follow” at that time I thought that he was an arbitrary man, but now that I’m older  I can see how right he was.